


Reel Talk 3: As Reel As It Gets

by PiousMage



Series: Reel Talk Starring Pearl And Marina [3]
Category: Splatoon
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Lesbian Cephalopods (Splatoon), Post-Octo Expansion DLC, Splatfest (Splatoon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 23:24:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20882390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PiousMage/pseuds/PiousMage
Summary: In the finale of the Reel Talk trilogy, Pearl and Marina grapple with the consequences of the final Splatfest and what it means for their future as well as the future of Inkopolis.





	Reel Talk 3: As Reel As It Gets

The cameras clicked off, the mics went dead, and the “ON AIR” light dimmed. Marina exhaled, wiping her eyes. “You know, you really shouldn’t mess with me like that when we’re live.” Her face was still flushed, and she stared Pearl down as she spoke. “I just about broke down in tears in front of all of Inkopolis Square!”

Pearl heaved herself off her clamshell seat with a thud, disarming Marina with a wide grin. “Come on, Rina, you didn’t really believe me, did you?” she asked, walking over to where Marina leaned against her turntables. She took one of Marina’s hands in her own, although Marina was still pouting.

“Pearlie, you have to remember. You invoked Article 4 of Splatfest Law,” Marina explained. She was calming down now; Pearl had taken a hold of her other hand and was swinging them back and forth to ease her nerves. “I’m obligated to take everything you say seriously, especially since you won.” She bit her lower lip as something dawned on her for the first time. “Do you even know how Inkopolis is going to change?”

“Nope!” Pearl said confidently. “That’s the point, right? You can’t plan chaos. You just have to let it happen!” She kept smiling, comfortable in a world in which she had no idea what would happen next.

“I suppose,” Marina conceded, finally rising from her leaning position. She knelt slightly to kiss Pearl on the forehead. “Just as long as you promise we’ll still be together in whatever world we end up living in.”

“I mean, I don’t have a crystal ball or anything,” Pearl started, although she noticed Marina’s expression souring, so she continued, “but come on, Rina. You shouldn’t need me to promise anything. Do you really think there’s any way we won’t be together until the end of time?”

They continued to speak as they walked, hand-in-hand, out of the studio. “I certainly don’t intend to be the one to leave you behind,” Marina said. “Your bars are just too good a match for my beats,” she added, finally cracking a smile.

Marina’s apartment was within walking distance of the studio where they recorded Inkopolis News, and the path they typically took was always the same. As a result, Off the Hook’s more devout fans would sometimes post themselves up along the route, hoping for a picture, autograph, or even just a wave of acknowledgement. In the immediate aftermath of their latest single’s, the route sometimes got so crowded that Pearl would sometimes have her chauffeur pick them up from the studio.

It had been a few weeks since they dropped Reel Talk, and it was still atop the charts, though the initial fervor had died down significantly. It was critically lauded for its seamless fusion of genre, but far more attention was paid to the lyrical content. Pearl and Marina were almost painfully explicit when writing them. They wanted it to be crystal clear that it wasn’t just a love song, it was a love song each of them dedicated to the other.

Still, reporters saw fit to ask the question that most people who listened to the song knew the answer to: “Does this song mean you two are an item?” They’d hoped that they wouldn’t have to spell it out but unfortunately, they did. After the third interview they did regarding their “newfound feelings for each other,” they had gone to Marie’s to vent, and all she did was laugh. She joked that a reporter’s only job is to state the obvious.

There were a few days where they walked the crowded path home, hands intertwined as eager Inklings and Octolings alike snapped pictures of the happy couple on their phones. On those days, just like any other day, there were fans bold enough to yell things at them from afar. Usually it was “I love you!” or “Play Starfish Mainstage again!” but the fans started saying different things after Reel Talk. The shouts became “We’re proud of you!” or “You’re so cute together!” There were even a couple of times where a fan got up the courage to approach them and tell them that Reel Talk had helped them realize their own feelings for a friend.

It wasn’t an epidemic, to be sure, but several couples did get together as a result of Off the Hook’s latest single. Marina scrolled through her phone as her and Pearl waited to cross the street that her apartment building was on. Her Freshbook feed was inundated with content as it always was: Callie posting a selfie from the gym, an ad for the latest clothing line from Toni Kensa, a web search from Cap that he had mistakenly posted as a status update (today’s was “how to remove virus”). One update, however, nearly made her drop her phone.

“Pearlie!” she exclaimed, shoving her phone in Pearl’s face, “I didn’t know Three and Eight got together!”

Pearl squinted at the screen in the sunlight. She hadn’t updated her Freshbook in years, and in fact her profile picture was from her glory days as an underground punk sensation. She sported a black eye from a crowdsurfing experience gone wrong, and her latest update was “I have more hitz than just my songzzz!!!” The layout of the site had changed so many times since her last visit that it took her a second to process what she was looking at. But sure enough, it was a relationship update indicating that Agent 3, hero of Octo Valley, and Agent 8, hero of the Deepsea Metro, had officially gotten together. Of course, the status update used their real names, but it was habit by now for everyone to refer to them using their New Squidbeak Splatoon codenames.

“Well, dang,” Pearl said once she had figured out what she was looking at. “You think we had anything to do with it?”

Marina pulled her phone back and scrolled through Eight’s personal feed as they finally crossed the street together. Eight posted far more often than Three did, although not all of Eight’s posts made sense. “I think so,” she noted as they turned towards Moray Towers East. “Eight posted a status about listening to our song with Three on the Metro, and then an update about ‘looking for feels,’ and then one about…buttered flies?” Saying it out loud made her realize the intent. “Oh! She had butterflies in her stomach when she asked Three out! That’s adorable!”

They were at the door of the apartment building now, and Pearl stood aside so Marina could swipe her keycard and let them in. She tapped her foot as Marina walked up the stoop. “You know they both joined Team Order, right?”

As Marina opened the door for Pearl, her eyes went wide at this new revelation. “I actually didn’t realize! I was so focused on the future I suppose I wasn’t paying much attention to the present.” They walked down the entryway and Marina took out her keyring as they approached apartment number 8. “I know Cap joined me, but he wasn’t much help. Marie did, too, but she was pretty busy.” She unlocked her apartment and again opened the door to allow Pearl in first, watching as Pearl walked in casually, her hands behind her head.

Pearl occasionally crashed at Marina’s, but for the most part, Marina lived alone. The décor in her apartment was somewhere between utilitarian and nonexistent. The walls were barren, save for a framed golden record that represented Off the Hook’s first hit single, Ebb & Flow. Countertops and end tables were consistently clear of clutter, and shelves were meticulously organized. Early in their friendship, Pearl joked that Marina probably alphabetized her spice rack. “How else would I know where the oregano is!?” Marina had responded through tears.

Conspicuously out of place in what was otherwise an apartment in which no other piece of furniture deviated from the theme, Pearl plopped herself down in her neon beanbag chair. “So, since Chaos won, does that mean I finally get to redecorate your apartment?”

Closing the door and turning the deadbolt, Marina turned to Pearl and glowered. She held up a single finger. “You can put one poster up.”

Pearl threw her hands into the air and laughed, tilting her head back and letting her crown fall. “I was kidding! Gee, Marina, I thought I taught you how to take a joke.”

Marina walked over, picked up Pearl’s crown, and hung it from the hook she had installed specifically for it. She sighed as she sat herself on the couch. “I’m sorry, Pearlie, I’m just nervous.” She sank a little bit deeper into the couch cushions. “I just don’t like not knowing what’s going to happen.”

A bit awkwardly, Pearl rolled herself over on top of the beanbag, laying on her stomach now and facing her partner. “Rina, you don’t gotta apologize. If anyone should be saying they’re sorry, it should be me. You’ve been taking this so seriously and all I’ve been doing is cracking jokes and giving you a hard time.”

The corner of Marina’s mouth curled slightly upward. “Pearlie, I’d be worried if you weren’t cracking jokes and giving me a hard time.”

It was Pearl’s turn to pout, now, and Marina waved a hand and laughed softly. Pearl sighed. “I know you’re worried about the future, Marina. I get it!” She turned away, resting her chin on top of her folded hands that rested on the edge of the beanbag. “But I don’t wanna be alone here in the present.”

Sensing that Pearl was having a rare bout of introspection, Marina rose from the couch and knelt next to the beanbag, placing a hand softly on Pearl’s back. “Pearlie, you’re not alone. You’re never alone. I’m sorry if my mind’s been elsewhere lately.”

Tears welling up a little bit, Pearl wiped her eyes as she smiled at Marina. “This better not be one of those talks we have where we just end up crying and apologizing to each other over and over again.”

Marina rubbed Pearl’s back reassuringly. “Look, if I had known you were allergic, I wouldn’t have ordered takeout from that place.”

In spite of herself, Pearl snorted out an ugly laugh. “Not that, stupid!” She reached for a tissue from the coffee table and wiped her face clean. “I just…I don’t feel like I get to worry.”

Marina’s head tilted. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it makes sense that you’re worried about what’s going to happen. Your team lost! You don’t get to be in control of what happens.” She crumpled the tissue and tossed it towards the trash can, although it fell well short. “You don’t have to take responsibility for what happens.”

“Pearlie…”

“Yay! I won! Whoo! Chaos reigns!” Pearl sarcastically exclaimed, waving her hands. “But what if bad stuff happens? What if people don’t like what happens? What if people get hurt?” She finally turned back to face Marina now, and tears ran down her face. “That’s all on me, Marina.”

Marina shook her head. “Pearl, even if something like that happens, it’s not your fault.”

“I invoked Article 4, Rina! It would literally be my fault!”

Grimacing, Marina nodded. “Okay, that’s fair. It would at least a little bit be your fault.”

Finally, Pearl got up to help her tissue finish its journey to the trash can. “I’ll admit that was kind of an impulse decision. Now that Chaos won, I’ve been realizing how serious it is.” She dropped the tissue into the can as if she were dropping the mic after delivering a sick verse. “This world really is going to change. And I have no idea how.” She stared down into the can. “It’s exciting, sure. But if it ends up going south for whatever reason, I’m gonna be the first one people trash.”

As Pearl stared into oblivion, Marina slowly walked up behind her, placing her crown back on her head. “Uneasy lies the crown,” she said, wrapping her arms around Pearl from behind once the crown was back where it belonged.

Pearl snorted again. “You’re corny,” she said, “but thanks. It really ain’t easy being me.” She adjusted the crown slightly before resting her hands on top of Marina’s, on her stomach. She leaned back into the embrace. “I guess I gotta grow up from being MC Princess to MC Queen eventually.”

“That’ll be a fitting name for your solo career, you know.”

Shocked, Pearl turned around, looking up at Marina. “Rina, I said I wasn’t se—”

A deliberate finger placed to Pearl’s lips stopped her midsentence. “I have to be ready for anything in this new world of yours, right?” Marina smiled. “We can still love each other even if you go solo. Plus, I missed your first solo career.” She placed a hand on Pearl’s cheek and tilted her head up. “I like the idea of being in the audience for your next one. It means I get to watch you doing what you love most.” She bent down to kiss Pearl, their lips lingering together for a few seconds. As Marina pulled away, she added in a whisper, “apart from me, of course.”

Pearl jabbed Marina lightly in the shoulder, but she couldn’t help but smile. “You know Off the Hook is far from being done though, right?”

Marina walked over to the golden record on her wall. “I need more of these to hang up! And we can’t stay on Inkopolis News forever. We still have to take our next big step!”

Nodding, Pearl trotted back to her beanbag and plopped right back down. “But when I do go solo, you’ll produce for me, right?”

Marina laughed, wedging herself onto the beanbag with Pearl. “I still remember the beats you ‘made’ the last time I let you play with my gear. MC Queen won’t be around long if she doesn’t have DJ Hyperfresh backing her up!”

“Come on, those beats were fire!”

“They nearly set my gear on fire!”

The back-and-forth went on for some time, punctuated every now and then by a kiss. After a while, exhaustion from the final Splatfest caught up to them, and they both fell asleep in each other’s arms.


End file.
